This compact book introduces the reader to Argentine urban music of the 1990s, when the neoliberal project imposed by President Carlos Menem was drastically affecting the lives of millions of people. The music that emerged in the 1990s documented current developments, particularly the harsh toll of neoliberal policies on the population, and reflected upon and protested the effects of those policies. The author explores how “the social and historical milieu inspired popular music composers to create lyrics that examine the nation's current situation and the history of their own musical genre, while also questioning both individual and collective identities” (122). The lyrics, she argues, serve as repositories of collective memory.
Fuentes Korban traces the little-studied impact of neoliberalism in Argentina, as Menem pegged the austral to the dollar, invited in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), privatized industry, deregulated the economy, and reduced the welfare role of government. As workers lost their jobs and people went hungry, inequality and crime increased. At the same time, new styles of music arose in the marginalized urban barrios that expressed anger, criticism, and rebellion. The author concentrates on three genres of music: tango, rock chabón, and cumbia villera. Tango was not new, but rock chabón (a subcategory of national rock) and cumbia villera (which arose in the shantytowns) were. The author examines these three genres in relation to memory studies, specifically “the intersection between music, historic events, and individual experiences and memories” (3). She is interested in how songs reflect the period of the 1990s and foster or trigger memories of the era.
The author's methodology consisted of calling people together in several cities for what she calls listening sessions, in which participants would listen to songs and talk about the reactions and memories the music provoked. The book nicely weaves together specific songs with an account of the deteriorating political and social situation in Argentina and the comments of the participants. The author also analyzes the impact of new technologies, and, in chapter 6, studies several songs on YouTube to assess their number of views and the comments they elicited. She identifies certain songs, with a large following and significant user interaction, as “virtual sites of memory” (103). Many songs—“canciones con historia,” as she calls them—document the difficulties of life in the barrios under neoliberalism and tell the stories of their people.
One wishes that Fuentes Korban had delved more deeply into the power of music itself, that is, songs without words, to evoke memory. She emphasizes the lyrics (e.g., 13, 122), but music alone can also express emotion, call forth memories, and transport the listener to other times and places. Despite her focus and the book's title that highlight history and memory, the author does not deeply interrogate or clearly define what she means by each. She sets out to examine “the junction between history and individual and collective memory of the neoliberal decade” (4) without much theoretical exploration of the concepts, their distinctions, and their relationships with one another (she briefly dips into the intersection of memory and history via a quote from Pierre Nora on page 14).
Overall, the book is an interesting and original foray into the perceptions of ordinary Argentines about a specific historical era, as evoked by music, and the ways in which music captures and reacts to contemporary events and prompts listeners to remember.
